The Color of Slush And Other Cousinly Advice
by amaXdear
Summary: My name is Scorpius Malfoy, and I am not God. In fact, I am as far from God as can possibly be. Maybe I should clarify--I’m not talking about an actual “Worship me” God. I’m talking about Ted Remus Lupin. There’s not much of a difference. A few swears.


My name is Scorpius Malfoy, and I am not God. In fact, I am as far from God as can possibly be. Sorry, maybe I should clarify--I'm not talking about an actual "Worship me" God. I'm talking about Ted Remus Lupin. To be honest, there's not much of a difference.

That's not fair. Teddy doesn't ask people to worship him, but they do anyway. _Everyone_ loves Teddy. They just can't help it. He's smart, he's funny, he's bloody charming. And somehow, none of that goes to his head. It's not fair! How on Earth can someone be that perfect?

I was talking to Louis Weasley the other day, and he reckons I'm lucky I'm an only child. He says he's constantly being compared to his sisters because he's not as smart or well-behaved. I told him he's lucky he doesn't have to measure up to Teddy, because no one can. Teddy was Head Boy and top of his class when he graduated. The only thing that he absolutely couldn't do is play Quidditch, because he's absolute rubbish when it comes to hand eye coordination or, as Mum puts it, "Finding the only breakable thing in the room and wounding himself with it, including, when all else fails, his own body." So what does he do? He becomes the bloody commentator! And a good one, at that!

Mostly, Head Boys and tops of classes are prats, but noooooo, not Teddy. He was the most popular guy at Hogwarts. He's nice to everyone, and really funny, and just a little mischievous. I know this even better than the students he went to school with, because he always came home bursting with stories of things he and his mates got into, and they hardly ever got caught. Harry gave him the Marauder's Map, because Teddy's dad had helped make it, so they could always find out where the teachers were. They didn't have an Invisibility Cloak or anything, but whenever they saw a teacher approaching, Teddy would Transfigure his clothes very quickly and morph into another teacher, and get them out of trouble.

Not to mention--and I say this as a strictly heterosexual, yet observant, guy--Teddy's pretty good-looking. All the adults have told him a million times that he looks just like his dad, except for his mum's eyes, but I'm not sure if that's true. _I_ don't see the resemblance, but apparently the whole werewolf thing made his dad _look_ a lot older. Anyway, he's tall and kind of skinny, and he's got these weird stormy blue eyes. He doesn't change his bone structure much, but he changes his hair all the time. Naturally, it's brown. Usually, it's purple or turquoise. On May 2nd, it's bubble-gum pink, and his eyes turn brown like his natural hair. I heard the look became so popular that on May 2nd, in his seventh year, the entire school Charmed their hair to look like his.

Side note, about the whole Metamorphmagus thing--Teddy is probably the best actor I've ever met. He knows how to observe people and reflect it back. It never fails that, whenever Teddy's at a party, he's going to put on a performance. He makes fun of _everyone_, but not in a mean way at all. You can't help but laugh.

Teddy left Hogwarts the year before I started, and went into the Ministry. I'm not sure exactly what he _does_ in the Ministry, or even what department he's in, but I've heard Grandmum say that Kingsley Shacklebolt and Percy Weasley--both ex-Ministers--have bets on how long it takes Teddy to become Minister of Magic. Weasley thinks he'll get it by age thirty. Shacklebolt's betting on twenty-five. Either way, he'll be the youngest Minister in… forever.

The thing is, Teddy's got _plans_. He wants to re-organize the Ministry, encourage people to find their own careers instead of relying on the endless number of departments to swallow them up, abolish laws that should have been abolished years ago (particularly the anti-werewolf ones; too many werewolf attacks in the war kept the public from letting Harry Potter or Hermione Granger get rid of them), and establish peace with werewolves, centaurs, merpeople, giants, and goblins. Impossible, right?

_He has a step-by-step plan._ Even more incredible: _Hermione thinks he can make it work._

So, just to sum up: My cousin close-enough-to-be-a-brother is brilliant, likeable, and handsome, and he has the potential to become the most powerful man in the world by age twenty-five.

And he was in Slytherin.

No one cares.

How amazing is that? Slytherin has had an evil reputation for _centuries_. Teddy is HARRY BLOODY POTTER'S godson, and people don't care! How does he _do_ that? Oh, and not to mention I heard a rumor that he's dating Victoire Weasley, the part-veela Gryffindor Quidditch captain who everyone thinks is going to go pro for the Holyhead Harpies, just like her aunt. She's beautiful, smart, _and_ she loves Quidditch?

Why is he so lucky? Let me rephrase: Why aren't I lucky?

I'm short, pale, shy, immature, awkward, dumb, and the first Malfoy to be sorted into Gryffindor in, like, a thousand years. Not that it matters. Teddy's more of a Malfoy than I am. Sure, he was raised by Aunt Andromeda and Harry bloody Potter, but everyone knows my parents'll do anything for him.

Basically, that was why I was sitting in the garden, ignoring the fact that it was absolutely freezing. Normally, I loved this corner of the garden; in the spring, it's bursting with color. It's full of Muggle plants that Aunt Andromeda helped Grandmum plant, and Grandmum always takes care of it herself. Unfortunately, I was home for Christmas break, so everyone was cold and ugly. The only snow was just gray slush. I kicked at it, wondering when someone would come out and try to talk to me. It was nearly time for dinner, and I had been sitting there since ten in the morning, hoping they wouldn't notice.

"Hey Scorp!"

They sent Teddy. No one else calls me that. It's bad enough that my full name sounds like a disease without removing that last little bit of dignity.

"Hi, Teddy," I mumbled, grinding my heel into the snow again.

I glanced up; Teddy was strolling through the garden with his hands in his pockets and his hair a very festive green. He dropped onto the bench languidly, and his sleeve got pulled up a little bit. He had a new tattoo on his arm: a thin snake, wrapped twice around his right wrist. He also had a half-moon on his left forearm, three paw prints over his heart, and something in Latin across his back. Told you he was cool.

"Aren't you going to beg and ask me what I got you for Christmas?"

"No." What was the point? He never told me anyway, and I was nearly twelve. I was getting too old for that to be cute anymore.

"You're no fun in your old age, Scorp." Teddy sounded disappointed, and I felt bad for a minute. Then again, Teddy was close enough to the Weasleys and they still had half a dozen kids he could baby, so oh well. I just shrugged.

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, and I glanced up very quickly. Teddy was looking around the garden dreamily, clearly not bothered by the quiet, but I was getting restless.

"How's Aunt Andromeda?" She was supposed to visit for my birthday that summer, but she had gotten dragon pox. Last I heard, Grandmum was nervous; my dad's grandfather had died from dragon pox.

"She got here with me, ask her yourself." I didn't move yet. If she was well enough to visit, then there was no need for me to rush inside and have a final conversation. "I didn't think you would. How's Hogwarts? Al's written me about fifteen letters and you haven't sent one."

"I don't want to talk about Hogwarts," I said automatically. It was a little embarrassing that Albus Potter was acting more like Teddy's family than I was, but I didn't care _that_ much. I know for a fact that Teddy asked Potter to try and be friends with me, but we hadn't made much progress. Probably my fault.

"So _that's_ the problem," Teddy said. "Draco says you've been out here for hours. What happened?"

I just kicked at the snow again. It was a fast-shrinking pile of mush now. There was a sigh, and the snow rose into the air. I watched, fascinated despite myself, as the pile was sculpted and solidified into something resembling the Hogwarts crest. Teddy flicked his wand lazily, and the four houses glowed with color. It looked really cool, like watching a fire through clouded glass.

"I can never get the motto right," he admitted. "Instead of 'Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus' it always looks like 'Dmoo oomins nuqam tiladus.'" Yeah, it was kind of smushed together. "Ah well. At least the rest of it looks nice, don't you think? Especially the top. My badger is pathetic and the eagle's a little out of proportion, but the snake and the lion--"

"Dad's already told you, hasn't he?" I sighed. It wasn't a question.

"Yup," he said cheerfully. "So, what's the problem?"

"You're joking," I said flatly.

"No," he said slowly, eyes still trained on the shield. I think he was working on making the animals move--the snake started to shiver a bit. "I'm confused. Did you really expect to be Sorted into Slytherin?"

"_Yes_!" I said, disbelievingly. Could he really be that stupid? Were the twelve O.W.L.s just a fluke? "I'm a Malfoy! We're always in Slytherin! Can you imagine the way people _looked_ at me? The Sorting Hat didn't even hesitate, it just said 'Oh, that's interesting' and announced it to the whole school. No one even _clapped_."

"Come on, now," Teddy said fairly. "I know McGonagall and Longbottom, they're decent people."

"All right," I admitted grudgingly. "McGonagall and Longbottom clapped. So did Hagrid. But other than that--"

"And once Hagrid started clapping, the whole of Gryffindor started clapping," Teddy said wisely. "He's their Head of House, they follow him."

Damn him.

"All right, so _some_ of them clapped," I admitted, even more grudgingly. "But _still_--"

"Have any of the students said anything?" he asked sharply. "I ask-- I mean, Victoire wouldn't let them bully you if you asked her to help. She would have helped even if you were in Slytherin."

"Because you asked her to," I said under my breath.

"What was that?"

I gritted my teeth--this grated on my pride.

"I said, because you asked her to. Don't think I haven't noticed all these Weasley cousins trying to look out for me."

I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. Teddy shifted uncomfortably. He was a good liar, but he was very bad at lying to me. I heard him telling Mum once that it was because he had broken my toy broomstick when I was three. He had planned an elaborate tale involving Grandmum's Kneazle and the family owl, but then I had started crying and the whole thing unraveled. _Lying to Scorp,_ he had said, _is like lying to a crying three-year-old. It just can't be done._

"It's not that I don't think you can take care of yourself," he said quietly. "I only asked Al, because I think you too could really get along, and Victoire, because I knew there was no chance you would be in Slytherin. To be honest, I would have been shocked if you were. You are the complete opposite of cunning. Just look at this--you've hidden for hours because you _know_ you can't keep secrets, and I've gotten it out of you after about four minutes."

"Doesn't count," I mumbled. "That's just 'cause it's _you_. You're better at this than Mum and Dad."

"Maybe," Teddy admitted. The corner of his mouth twitched, and he looked back at the floating Hogwarts crest. I followed his gaze.

The bronze eagle was trying to fly, but its wings were too small for his body. The badger was trying to dig at the frame of the crest, but it's paws were just shapeless blobs. The snake, however, was twisting like mad around the barriers of its section, and the lion was prancing around regally.

"That's really cool."

"Thanks."

"I wish I was in Slytherin."

"No, you don't," Teddy sighed. "You're just saying that because you thought you would be, which I still can't fathom. Look, Scorp, do you think a _real_ Slytherin would spend all this time fretting about being Sorted into Gryffindor?"

I paused, thinking. I knew it was a trick question, but I didn't know how to outsmart Teddy, so I said, "Yes? Because a real Slytherin would know they shouldn't be in Gryffindor?"

"Of course not!" Teddy said, throwing his hands in the air spastically. He always did that when he got into a really good debate. The excitement of breaking his opponent made him a little stupid-looking. "A _real_ Slytherin would say 'Hey, everyone loves Gryffindors! I can totally use this to my advantage!' Only a real Gryffindor, who thought that their family wanted them to be in Slytherin, would feel guilty because they wanted to be loyal enough to be in Slytherin."

That made sense.

"Fine," I sighed. "Maybe I do belong in Gryffindor. But I still wish I wasn't," I added petulantly, and then blushed. What was I, five?

"Why not?" Teddy asked. He sounded frustrated. "C'mon, Scorp, you know it's nothing to be ashamed of. It's who you've been since you were a kid. The Sorting just makes it a little more… obvious."

"It's my parents," I admitted. I looked away from Teddy. It was weird, talking about parents to him. His bright, obnoxious hair colors always faded, just a little bit. Sure, he understood. He knew them as well as I did, _and_ he knew a lot more parental figures, so he had much more experience dealing with them. The problem was that it felt selfish, complaining about your parents to someone who would give anything to have some.

"I thought that might be it," Teddy said gently. He moved a little closer and put a hand on my shoulder. The Hogwarts crest fell and smashed into pieces on the ground. "Dammit! That was the-- oh, never mind. What was I saying?"

"My parents," I reminded him, trying not to grin. He cleared his throat.

"Right. Listen, Scorpius, I understand that they might be acting differently now. The same thing happened to me with the Potters and the Weasleys when I was Sorted. But it's nothing personal. It doesn't mean that they don't like you, it doesn't mean that they're not proud of you. It just means that you are different than they are. They were raised exactly like their parents were raised, because for generations that's all anyone expected of the Malfoy and Greengrass families. Now, they have to adjust to the fact that the world is different, and _you_ are different. They're trying to raise you as best they can, without making any of their parents mistakes. It's a tough job, parenthood. You really only have one example to follow, and realizing that it's not a good example can be difficult."

Teddy paused for a moment. Somehow, during that little speech, we had moved so we were sitting face to face on the bench, and he eyed me seriously. His eyes were green today, like Potter's, and very scrutinizing.

"How much has your dad told you about the war?" he asked suddenly. I was surprised.

"Not much," I shrugged. "He said he made a few bad decisions, and people were angry with us for it. Why?"

"All right." Teddy ran a hand through his hair anxiously, and it turned dark brown--it _is_ kind of hard to take someone seriously when they have green hair. "All right. What I'm about to tell you, you can't tell them, all right? If they find out, I might get in huge, enormous trouble--"

Yeah right.

"--but what's the point of having an older cousin if they don't help you break the rules now and again?"

He paused, somewhat hesitantly.

"No point at all," I said quickly.

"Right. So…" He took a deep breath. "All right. When Draco was sixteen, he… he became a Death Eater."

I gasped. I couldn't help it. I mean, I knew my family had a history of association with the Dark Arts. It was kind of hard to ignore--every once in a while we showed up in the _Daily Prophet_, I knew that Dad and Harry Potter didn't get along, and there had to be a reason people at school didn't like me. But a _Death_ _Eater_? Seriously?

"Really? Like-- he has the--?"

I waved my hand vaguely at my forearm, where the Dark Mark would be. Teddy nodded solemnly.

"Yup. Not any more, really; after Voldemort--" I couldn't help but flinch "--died, for real, the Dark Mark faded. It's barely there. Looks more like a scar now."

"_Why_, though?" I demanded. "Dad's the one who's always telling me I have to be careful, don't judge people based on first impressions. I mean, my grandad I could understand, maybe, but--"

"Lucius was a Death Eater, too," Teddy interrupted. "Voldemort's right hand, for a while. But then, at the Battle at the Ministry, Lucius was captured and sent to Azkaban. Voldemort was not pleased, not at all, so he decided to get back at your family by recruiting Draco… his first task was to kill Albus Dumbledore."

I nearly toppled over the bench. My father had been told to kill Dumbledore. And Dumbledore was dead.

"Did--"

"Of course not, Teddy said impatiently, waving me away. "Come on, Scorp, you _know_ your dad. He's no more a murderer than you are. He did very well, got Death Eaters into the castle and everything--but he couldn't bring himself to kill him. Dumbledore died anyway, but that's a whole other story. The point is, for a year after that he was under Voldemort's thumb. This house became the Death Eater's headquarters--"

"WHAT?" I yelped. My _house_? Home to _Death_ _Eaters_? Sitting in our drawing room, plotting in our dining room, eating in our kitchen--sleeping in my bedroom???

"Relax. Malfoy Manor went through a complete and total renovation after the war. The Ministry came through, tore up half the place looking for Dark Arts things. Your grandparents and your dad were only too eager to replace stuff. Walls got torn down and rebuilt, floors redone, everything repainted, a lot of furniture disappeared--it's sterile. And your room used to be Draco's," he added, and I imagine I looked entirely unconvinced. "So no Death Eater's ever been in there."

Except for him.

"He was forced to do everything--anything Voldemort asked--because otherwise, Voldemort swore he would murder all three of them. It was… awful." He shivered.

"How do you _know_ all this?" I asked, amazed. "Did Dad really tell you?"

"No," he sighed. "I… I asked if I could borrow some memories. To help with work."

"How does knowing this stuff help?" I asked doubtfully. Teddy looked away pensively, looking over the garden wall, into the trees.

"It helps me remember what I'm struggling for," he said finally. "It's--frustrating--sometimes, going through all the paperwork, the politics. I've been in the Ministry for less than a year, so I'm still just a face in the crowd. Visiting werewolves, reading books about goblin culture, learning Mermish--it all feels rather pointless sometimes, but it helps, having these memories. I've got some from all over: Harry, Draco, Kingsley, Arthur, Ginny… Anyway," he said, shaking his head and looking at me again.

"My point is this: your father will do anything to keep his family together. _Anything_. You can elope with Rose Weasley and name your child Ronald Harry Malfoy, and he would still accept you. Might not be too happy about it, but he wouldn't love you any less. I wouldn't be here right now if he and Aunt Cissy hadn't sought out my Gran, because we're family. Your grandparents might be long dead by now, but they're family. It's like The Godfather, only not, but--"

"The what?"

"Oh, never mind. Here, look at this."

Teddy pulled off the ring on the fourth finger of his right hand, and, for the first time, I realized that I had never really looked at it. The first time he had worn it, I hadn't noticed until nearly midnight, when I was supposed to be in bed. He had been doing one of his performances, and I wanted to watch, so I snuck back to the top of the stairs.

Teddy handed it to me. The silver metal was warm, and I realized that my hands hand gone numb from hours in the cold. The ring was obviously custom-made, probably expensive. An oval emerald, as tall as the first two knuckles on my index finger, was held in place with delicately engraved serpents. I slipped the whole thing over my thumb; it was too big for me, but probably fit Teddy perfectly. Someone had gone through a lot of trouble to make this.

"Draco and Astoria gave that to me the day I came of age," he said quietly. "Look at the inscription."

I took the ring off and turned it over. Three words were engraved inside. I squinted, but the letters were too small and in a different language--not a great combination.

"I can't read it."

"_Prosapia_ _est_ _panton_. That's Latin for 'family is everything'. And I'm just a second cousin--you're their only son, Scorpius. They're going to do whatever it takes to keep you happy."

I handed the ring back and kicked at the pile of snow again. It was still red, green, yellow and blue.

"That's 'cause it's you, though. Everybody loves you. They wouldn't waste a whole lot of money like that on me," I mumbled. I felt like being depressed and moody.

"Scorp, I'm gonna level with you; in my first year, I didn't have a single friend. My own house didn't like me, because I didn't like being in my house. Ravenclaws didn't like me because, on the rare occasion someone approached me trying to be friendly, I talked too much and chased them away. Hufflepuffs didn't like me because I was lazy and judgmental. Gryffindors didn't like me because everyone Gryffindor in my year was an arrogant tosspot who thought they were something special because their parents were war heroes, and I didn't want to talk about mine. I was _miserable_. So you know what I did?"

"Hid in the Shrieking Shack and cried your eyes out?" I suggested. It's what he did when the girl he fancied in fifth year turned him down in front of half the school.

"I never should have told you that story. No. I stood up for myself. I turned my hair pink, and I walked up to the first person who teased me and said that my parents were heroes, and it was my mum's favorite color and I liked it. And then I said that my dad was a werewolf, and they were thirteen years apart in age, and that they were both dead, and I didn't give a damn what anyone else said about it. I didn't care about being a Slytherin anymore, because I had three wonderful families, and anyone else wasn't worth my time. It was a speech of Gryffindorian proportions," he added, and his lips twitched into a smile. "It took me until May second to work up the nerve, and by the time I went home for the summer, I had two great friends that are my best friends to this day."

"How are you so lucky?" I marveled. "Anyone else would have been laughed at for years if they did that!"

"Lucky?" Teddy laughed--full-on laughed, too, not just a chuckle. His hair was turning bright purple. "Scorp--everyone _did_ laugh. I was a scrawny little kid with pink hair yelling my guts out at a popular, arrogant Gryffindor Quidditch player! Of _course_ they laughed. That's the point--I wasn't saying it because he was picking on me, I was saying it because I needed to say it."

"And--and that was it?" I said hesitantly. "You just--got it out there, and you were all right?"

"No, of course not! I felt like shit!" My eyes widened just a little bit. Hey, I _was_ only eleven. "And the next year, when everyone called me wolfman until Professor Longbottom yelled at them, I felt like shit again. Next year, when I tried to duel Lucas Wood for picking on Victoire, I felt like shit again. And in fifth year, when Adelaine Rubarb turned me down on Valentine's Day even though I was prefect and commentator and had _finally_ grown into myself, I felt like shit again. And in my seventh year, when everybody turned their hair pink for May second even though no one understood what it meant to me and it cheapened one of the only connections I have to my parents, I felt like shit again. And thirty seconds ago when I heard that you feel like your parents like me more than they like you, I felt like shit _again_. Everyone feels inadequate sometimes. We all _are_ inadequate sometimes. And if you ever feel like you need to come out here and brood, then go ahead. But you've got to remember that there's always someone else who's going to follow you. All right?"

Is that the most sentimental, accurate speech you've ever heard, or what? I couldn't help it. I lunged over and hugged Teddy tighter than I've ever hugged anyone in my life, mumbling "thanks" into his chest. He was still way taller than I was.

"You're welcome, Scorp," Teddy said fondly, hugging me back. "Now come on," he said, standing and flinging a brotherly arm over my shoulder. "Let's go pig out and sing Christmas carols badly."

"All right." We started back towards the house, and walked right through the Hogwarts crest snow. It all started to mix together, and soon red was indistinguishable from green.

"So…" I started with a grin. "What did you get me?"

* * *

**This took ridiculously long to write, and I am ridiculously pleased with it. Anyone who's read my other oneshot, 'In Which Family is Discussed' (shameless self-insert) knows that I love the Teddy-Malfoy connection, and anyone who's read my **_**other**_** oneshot, 'Surprise' knows that I like the Teddy-Scorpius non-slash connection as well. Put the two together, you get mega-awesomeness!**


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